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That's a weird choice which is almost tempting in it's own right - but is there an actual reason above and beyond a different starting area?

I have an Asura Engineer but it was twee-beyond-speech :)

You were complaining about inconsistent difficulty, moving slowly, and sonic periscopes (those are temporary). Asura are tiny compared to Norn, so they seem to move much faster than larger races, and guardians don't have any problems with PvE content whatsover in addition to plenty of speed boosts (they're arguably one of the most complete classes in general).

Also Metrica Province doesn't have any sonic periscopes, but you can pick which starting zone you want to play in right away by going back into your capital city and taking the Asura gate to Lion's Arch (the purple swirly thing on the map).

You were complaining about inconsistent difficulty, moving slowly, and sonic periscopes (those are temporary). Asura are tiny compared to Norn, so they seem to move much faster than larger races, and guardians don't have any problems with PvE content whatsover in addition to plenty of speed boosts (they're arguably one of the most complete classes in general).

Also Metrica Province doesn't have any sonic periscopes, but you can pick which starting zone you want to play in right away by going back into your capital city and taking the Asura gate to Lion's Arch (the purple swirly thing on the map).

Just for reference - I'm a Norn Guardian and I an assure you that much of the PvE content can be a challenge :)

My last playsession was Level 11-12 - the quests I have left (hearts) are Level 14/15 - next story is Level 14 - enemies over Level 11 take HUGE chunks out of my health, if I pull 2+ I'll almost certainly die (if I'm smart I'll have left one near death for a quick rez) and so I'm really looking at 2 levels of grinding.

I've also noticed GW2 is VERY keen to cripple your levels - in one area it goes from downlevelling me to 8 whilst 1/2mile away it demands Level 14. It feels very limited and restrictive - and, frankly, I think they've overloaded the classes with too many skills and options turning them all into a massive jack-of-all trades bodgeup.

It's also VERY buggy - given it's age I didn't expect to fight enemies stuck in walls, enemies who are immune to attacks and so on. Sonic Periscopes are annoying enough until you realise they don't affect enemies either - which can leave you screwed as 2 enemies attack you from within it's range but you can't go near them (escort quest failed).

I really do think GW1 was a better game - there, I've said it and now I can move on. It wasn't an MMO - it WAS a better game.

Closure: (courtesy of Rauten) Good atmosphere and art style, the music is suitably creepy, and the concept is clever enough. Didn't run into any particularly taxing puzzles, because the performance is absolutely horrendous, to the extent that I couldn't keep playing. Random framerate drops abound.

Lume: That keyboard puzzle was mean, given that I know fuck-all about piano scales. I shouldn't have to consult a walkthrough for a <30 minute adventure game. The art style is really lovely in a few places, though I have to wonder as to the wisdom of building the world out of paper cutouts and then promoting green energy sources. Just seems a bit backwards to me.

Dark Souls: Started over with a priest. Considering how many of the enemies I cheesed with pyromancy, I'm finding it a bit more difficult at the start. Once I find a rapier (and upgrade the hell out of it) I expect things to go much smoother.

Whenever I take a break for in these DeS or DaS and go play else (invariably because I am stuck) I find myself wanting to start over with a new character and do everything better, and try out a new build. I will beat them, though. Someday.

My last playsession was Level 11-12 - the quests I have left (hearts) are Level 14/15 - next story is Level 14 - enemies over Level 11 take HUGE chunks out of my health, if I pull 2+ I'll almost certainly die (if I'm smart I'll have left one near death for a quick rez) and so I'm really looking at 2 levels of grinding.

I've also noticed GW2 is VERY keen to cripple your levels - in one area it goes from downlevelling me to 8 whilst 1/2mile away it demands Level 14. It feels very limited and restrictive - and, frankly, I think they've overloaded the classes with too many skills and options turning them all into a massive jack-of-all trades bodgeup.

I really think you are looking at some of these aspects in the wrong light. If the content in one zone is starting to outlevel you, or a certain renown heart is a pain in the arse, there is nothing stopping you from playing in one of the many other lower level zones for a bit (or even crafting, it nets you lots of xp). In this sense the level scaling is not crippling or restrictive, but frees you to do absolutely any content you are high enough level for, the only downside to playing low level content is that crafting mats don't scale (to allow you to farm low level mats) - the rest of the loot, xp etc does.

Regarding classes/skills/traits, it took me a long time to even begin to work out what a good build was. Every class has many options for builds and the support skill choices can make a huge difference to how you play, but there is a lot of synergy between them to be found. If you want to play around with builds you can do so in Heart of the Mists (click the PvP tab at the top of the screen), free respecs and weapons, automatically level 80 with all skills.

You mentioned WoW a few times and I feel that if you try to play GW2 with a WoW mindset you won't be able to appreciate it's strengths, or how different a game it actually is. Agree with you on the sonic periscopes tho... they are an absolute pain in the fucking arse when solo.

I got up to level 40 with a Charr thief, around about release time, and had a blast. It was almost entirely to do with the presence of other people, and the exploration, the game was excellent at rewarding participation and curiosity in regards to both, and also encouraged cooperative and friendly efforts. Not a fan of power gaming at all but in regards to just having a nice time it was lovely.

I went back a few months later, the concentration of people was tiny and it felt just like walking around in a space. I think once most people got to level 80 they stopped, and gold farming and other MMO vices set in as well, and both those things negated all the great stuff from before.

The ‘story’ bit was pretty rubbish too I felt, really didn’t give a fuck about any of that. I look forward to dipping back in for community events and other stuff that will see lots of people involved though, because when it’s busy it’s a great experience.

Someone mentioned GW2 crafting so I took a peek and - surprise surprise it's a load of shite...

Why would I spend eons wandering around to find items and then spend money so I can craft things WORSE than the gear which dropped from random monsters again?

When will MMO designers realise that making us craft pointless shit just causes us to hate them even more?

Has any MMO ever had a meaningful crafting system which allows you to make things you NEED as opposed to just making your grind pointless shit on the off-chance there's one "otherwise unattainable" item in the far-distant future?

Looks like someone's on a GW2 hate spree. Look, if you'd said the crafting system was bland, I'd be right up there with you. But the items are useful if crafted at the right time. You also get a HUGE reward from crafting, in the form of experience points.

Cooking is awesome. Running around looking for ingredients, trying out different things together because it could work, it's really fantastic.

This. I do it New Vegas too, just look for stuff that makes recipes and junk, not because it's useful, but it just adds a bit of character and flavour, as well as XP.

If that's all the game was then aye, that would be rubbish, but in games so big and so ammenable to exploration and doing what you want they're just another characterful addition.

It sounds like you're dissapointed becuase the items you can craft aren't "useful", but that's only a criticism if you're concern is winning, and I suspect for alot of people in GW2 that's very much a secondary objective over playing their character. It's also not strictly accurate either, you can make a fortune if you decided you want to harvest materials intensively and sell them.

As somebody who has the master crafter title in Guild Wars 2, I think I can say with authority that the crafting in the game sucks. It's wasteful, time consuming and pointless. Only cooking and artificing are somewhat useful and even then you have access to about a billion different consumables of which only a handful are ever useful.

Mass Effect 1 is down, going straight into 2 now, immediately I recognise far more characters and little clever snippets on the galactic news and whatnot that make sense this time around, rather than when I first played. My shepard appears to have survived her character being imported vaguely intact, and can get through a cut scene without looking like Arnie learning to smile in Terminator 2. I've just picked up Mordin and Kasumi, who is the first new bit of DLC content for me. Onwards!

As somebody who has the master crafter title in Guild Wars 2, I think I can say with authority that the crafting in the game sucks. It's wasteful, time consuming and pointless. Only cooking and artificing are somewhat useful and even then you have access to about a billion different consumables of which only a handful are ever useful.

The number of consumables is so high because there are several tiers of the same "line of effect" (i.e., +x% damage against certain enemies at level A, +y% damage against those enemies PLUS -z% damage from the same enemies at level B, etc.), you are supposed to use them at different levels. Of course there are also recipes which won't benefit your profession/build as much as others, but many people just run with what the "group think" of the GW2 playerbase thinks is "effective" or "feasable" (like Magic Find increases, which often is not a very sensible choice) and ignores good alternatives.

Armor and weapon crafting (/Huntsman) is expensive to level but has the potential to save money in the long run (as in "not after a week of selling stuff at the TP"). Artificing is good. Easy access to massive amounts of XP is good. If you want you can easily power through 20 character levels for a few gold if you want to. Finding out new recipes for Cooking is fun.

Yeah, I think the big issue with GW2's crafting is that we all just grind it at random points. SO almost all equipment is pointless because by the time you grind for it, you have better picked up loot.

Cooking is useful, but the vast majority of it seems useless for the exact same reason. For one of my alts I am making a point to level crafting (cooking, to be specific) alongside my normal gameplay and it is definitely realy fun to get a new effectively permanent boost every few levels.

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